Messianic Language in Political Discourse

 I will post this only to my Writing Workshop blog. I don’t need to get distracted by getting embroiled in political or apocalyptic controversies that only disrupt peace and impede enlightenment. However, for my own peace, I feel a need to articulate my reflections on the recent comments by Donald Trump in relationship to Jewish political support for him in light of his stance on the state of Israel.

He spoke of himself in apparently messianic terms such as the chosen one. I have seen several reports and comments on this but have purposely not tried to analyze his specific language. I have, however, these two thoughts.

First, if his choice of messianic language is with intentional awareness, then he is blasphemous and acting along the lines of the “man of lawlessness” described in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 (1-12 for context). That this language seems not to have disturbed the dispensational contingent in evangelicalism is most unsettling. For all of the “watching for the signs of the times” in those circles, politics seems to have obscured spiritual vision.

Second, if this messianic language in unintentional without awareness of its implications, then he is ignorant, not only of Scripture and the theology of a significant voting bloc in his political base, but also of the presumptuousness of his own unrestrained ego and power craving.  

Though I have any number of political disagreements with Donald Trump and serious doubts about his moral compass, I hope I am wrong about the implications of his apparent use of messianic language to describe himself. I am not one to assemble all sorts of signs that identify The Anti-Christ, and I am not at all proposing to identify Donald Trump in that way. However, as 1 John 2:18 says, there are even now many antichrists, and we who follow Jesus must be alert not to be led astray (1 John 2:26) or deceived (2 Thessalonians 2:3).